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Board approves literacy-grant purchases for progress monitoring and whole-class chapter sets
Summary
Using a state Comprehensive Literacy grant, Queen Anne's County Public Schools approved year-one licensing and PD for Amplify MClass progress monitoring and purchased whole-class sets of HMH chapter texts for early grades.
Bridget Passen, English language arts supervisor for grades 3—612, and Angela Gieber, supervisor of instruction for early childhood and RELA, presented literacy-grant-funded purchases and asked the board to approve two items funded by the Comprehensive Literacy State Development Grant. The district won the competitive grant for Pre-K through 5th grade allocations and proposed splitting a multi-year Amplify MClass contract over three years to protect the district if future grant installments are not released.
The year-one cost for Amplify MClass professional development and progress-monitoring materials was read aloud as $83,746.60; a later line in the transcript contains a conflicting figure (noted in clarifying details). The Board approved the year-one purchase to provide more frequent progress monitoring for Tier 2 and Tier 3 readers (assessment every four to six weeks versus the three-times-a-year i-Ready screener) and PD for reading specialists, special educators and volunteers. Passen said volunteer teachers will pilot the program and that training will be offered starting Aug. 21.
The board also approved purchasing whole-class chapter-book sets (focal texts) from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt to begin communal chapter-book reading at third grade and up; fiscal impact for the texts was $60,769.92. Staff said reading specialists will provide PD to support classroom implementation.
Board members asked about teacher workload, volunteer-based training, and whether the contracted vendor will provide continued PD over the contract years; staff confirmed vendor support would continue in later years conditional on contract terms and funding. The purchases were approved by voice vote.
